The 7 Keys to Long-term Success for Doulas (And Other Birthworkers)
Do you feel like you’re spinning in circles with your doula business? Like you’re taking in tons of information… but none of it really clicks?
If you need a kick in the butt to create success in your doula business, then get out a pen and paper, this blog is for you.
Things you’ll learn in this blog:
How to learn from creators you love without overwhelming your brain…
The best ways to jumpstart your success in your local birth community…
Why you aren’t hitting the goals you’re setting for your doula business…
… and a whole lot more!
Today we will be chatting about habits that you need to implement into your doula business so that you can have a long-term, successful business model that doesn’t stress you out. Keep scrolling for my best 7 tips!
#1: Be very selective about the information you consume.
Less is more. It is so easy to be overwhelmed when you sign up for a million different freebies and courses, and listening to tons of podcasts and reading too many blogs… but that's not always helpful. This pattern of content consumption can cause you to get so overwhelmed with information that you don’t implement anything.
Instead, I want you to find just a few select sources that you really love and connect with, and consume 100% of their content on a regular basis. That is how you learn.
If you get on the email lists of a copywriter, a coach, and a mindset mentor, read every single email. You’ll start to understand how the copywriter writes in a way that's so captivating, you’ll start to understand how the coach and mentor launch their new offers, how they speak to their audience, and how they promote what they're working on. That's the best way to learn, not by getting on tons of email lists and just letting them sit in your inbox.
Treat podcasts the same too. Find several core podcasts that you love, listen to every single episode, and take notes! Pick the podcasts that feel really good to you and fully immerse yourself into the content.
#2: Starting today, operate from a place of certainty.
I want you to have no question at all about whether or not being a doula-entrepreneur is going to work out for you. I want you to know in your soul that things will evolve perfectly, exactly as they should. It's not an “If I will succeed…” it's a “When I succeed.” Having that mindset and operating from a place of certainty is 100% necessary if you want your business to work.
#3: Be willing to fail over and over and over and over.
You have to be willing and ready to fail. This entire thing is a learning process. It was for me, it is for you, and it was for the richest person in the world. Even if something totally flops, if you create a new offer that makes zero sales, if you put together a new doula package and nobody is interested, it is absolutely still a lesson worth learning.
In my business, I have changed paths so many times, and even worked hundreds and hundreds of hours on something for it to not even come to fruition. Regardless of all of the wasted hours (which really weren’t a waste at all), every step I have taken in my business has led me to amazing places.
#4: Put yourself in a position to meet other birth workers.
The biggest thing I ever did for my business was build relationships with other doulas. I completely credit the relationships I had with other doulas to me being able to build the amazing and wildly successful business that I have today.
Something else that I love to say to my students is collaboration over competition. We are in this together. There is literally no competition.
I’m willing to bet that you got into birthwork to serve women, not to make a bunch of money. So if you’re feeling competitive with other doulas, remember that serving moms comes first and building a business comes second. When you understand that, it is very clear that there is no competition in birthwork.
The doula community is also growing very fast nowadays, so if you are worried about really going all in, calling yourself a doula, investing in a website, or investing in one of my programs, now is the perfect time to jump in. You are going to be riding this wave because the doula community is growing faster than ever before!
Four years ago, when I started, if I looked around and said, "Oh, there's too many doulas already…" first of all, I would've never started in the first place, and second of all, I would never have the success that I have today. So jump in now and ride this wave with the growing community.
While you're jumping in and learning everything, put yourself in a position to meet other birthworkers. That can be in person or online, because I know a lot of my students say, "The doulas in my area are rude and cliquey, and I don't feel welcome." Definitely don't force that. Don’t hang out with people who are cliquey and rude, especially if you don't want to.
Always keep in mind that you don’t always have to connect with people in person, there is an amazing online community or birthworkers waiting to welcome you in. Whether that’s on Instagram, Facebook groups, or the Birthworker Membership, becoming friends with other doulas and birthworkers will absolutely transform your business in terms of finding more clients, making more money, and creating amazing connections.
#5: Listen to your community. Always be listening!
Listen and always be watching what's happening in your communities. This applies to both online and in person communities. You need to have conversations with real people. If you see a pregnant mom, say hello. You don't even have to tell her you're a doula, because that can feel really salesy and inauthentic. Just say something like, "Hi, are you excited? What do you do? What are you looking forward to most?"
Have genuine conversations and listen. Don't have conversations with an ulterior motive or to push your agenda. Just simply listen. You don't even have to do it in person, you could start conversations in Facebook groups, or join conversations that are already happening.
One of my favorite things to do with my new students, (especially in the Birthworker Academy where I train doulas, or the Birthworker Membership, which is my business membership,) I tell people, if you don't know where to have conversations with people, if you don't have an audience, if no one is responding when you ask questions, go to where the conversations are already happening!
Go hang out in the comment sections on your favorite birth influencers Instagram page. Go to @painfreebirth or @badassmotherbirther and start hanging out with the people in the comments section. The conversations are already happening there, so just go be a part of them. This is the perfect place to be, because when you listen to what people are looking for, that's when you can create a perfect offering that's going to serve them.
Another place you can do this besides Instagram is YouTube comments. Bridget from Built To Birth has an amazing YouTube channel, so go check out the comments section on her videos. What are people excited about? What are people saying? Are they sharing their fears? That's really going to help you nail down your messaging as a new doula and as a new entrepreneur.
The last place that you could go online for conversations is Amazon. Go to Amazon and check out some of the pregnancy, birth, and postpartum books, and look at the reviews. Don't just read the five-star reviews. Read them all. See what people are saying helped, what didn’t help, etc.
Sometimes new doulas will struggle with the fact that nobody responds to their stories, gird posts, etc. They look to people like me who have a larger audience and they say, "Ugh, that's like not fair. I just wish I had 10,000 followers." But let me change that narrative for you a little bit, small audiences are literal gold. They are magic. Someone with 200 followers on Instagram gets to do something that I cannot do. You have the ability to form real life, personal connections with every single one of your followers. I can't do that anymore.
That is a huge benefit that you have over having a larger account. So while you have a smaller account, take advantage of that. Literally DM every single new follower, invite them to a free Zoom call, or if they live in your town, invite them to coffee! Chat with them, become friends, and create authentic connections. Really take advantage of the small audience while you have it. Stop wishing that you are somewhere that you're not, and understand the magic of what you have going on right now.
#6: Be analytical about your results.
If you are launching a new program, for instance, you create and launch a childbirth education program and nobody buys, I want you to know that that says absolutely nothing about you. If you look at the numbers without the emotions attached, you'll be able to understand what went wrong and what you need to fix.
When you're just starting, the goal should not be to make a ton of money or have a bunch of clients. The goal should be to try, to show up consistently, and do things that scare you. Just get yourself out there. Once something is out there, it is so easy to actually take those results and be analytical about them.
So for instance, I have students in the Birthworker Membership, and one of the key tenants of the membership is I really want you to make your money back fast. A lot of the monthly challenges that we release have to do with how to actually make money. So for instance, February's challenge is how to do a flash sale. Let's say you put together a flash sale. You want to do a discount on your doula services, or you want to do a “buy-one-get-one-free” coaching call sale, awesome. Put in all the work, do the flash sale, follow the steps, send the emails, and if nobody buys, that’s okay, do a launch debrief.
Figure out how many people clicked to your sales page, DMed you questions, opened your emails, how many people actually pressed buy, etc. Grab all of those numbers and come to me as your mentor inside any of my programs, and let's chat about it. Let's figure out what happened.
It’s actually really easy to figure out where the holes are and where things are going wrong, but only if you're tracking your results and are analytical about the numbers.
#7: Always have a mentor.
Do whatever you have to do to get in rooms with people who are doing exactly what you want to do. That's one of my favorite things about the Birthworker Membership, it’s literally a room of 100+ visionary doulas and birth professionals who are actually doing the damn thing.
And of course, I don't have to be your mentor. Find a mentor that feels good to you, you consume all of their content and you have that full body yes. You have that feeling of, "I cannot get enough of this. I want more." Go find that person and be an absolute sponge.
Another layer on this is having accountability pods. This is something we do inside of Birthworker Academy and in the Birthworker Membership. It is so important to meet with other people weekly, and not even necessarily other people who are way ahead of you. Yes, it's great to have a mentor who is a few steps ahead of you, but also it's just as great to have an accountability group with women who are also right in the thick of it.
On top of that, I also want you to strive to be the dumbest person in the room. When you put yourself in these rooms with amazing birthworkers who are further into their business than you, you will soak up so much knowledge from everyone else there. That is really a shortcut to finding success: finding the people who've already done it, putting yourself in a room with them and learning from their mistakes and their successes. That alone will get you there so much faster.
I hope these 7 tips were helpful to you. Make sure to write them down and post them on your desk, mirror, or somewhere where you’ll see them! Shoot me a DM over on Instagram and let me know which number created an “aha moment” for you, or which tip you needed to hear most. I cannot wait to chat with you!
thank you for listening
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Meet your host, Kyleigh Banks, a side-gig doula turned CEO of a multi-six-figure birth-focused business. Her passion? Teaching birth nerds, like you, how to build an incredibly successful doula business that allows you to quit your day job, stay home with your kids, and most importantly, make a lasting impact on the world.